


Solstice

by lilyconrad



Series: Alignment [2]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drama, Fluff, M/M, Sex, Sith Anakin, Sith Obi-Wan, more tags to come as chapters continue, obikin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:02:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19308379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyconrad/pseuds/lilyconrad
Summary: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep."-Robert FrostAfter the events of Equinox, Obi-Wan and Anakin find themselves back at war with enemies both seen and unseen.





	1. Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back to my Equinox readers! <3 If you haven't read Equinox, I highly highly recommend you go read it first as this is a direct sequel to it.
> 
> And with that, here is the first chapter of Solstice. Hope you like it!

A priest moved back and forth across the worn steps of the little temple he lived in, sweeping each one carefully. Nestled in the foothills of a steep mountain, the temple was a tumble of ancient stone alone in the jungle, a fading reminder of the grand complex that had once stood behind it.

Dren didn’t mind the chore, the steady rasp of the broom satisfying as he made his way down the long spill of steps.

The greenery had claimed most of the original complex and was working to overtake what was left, but his order always kept one priest there to hold it back as best they could. It was a five-year assignment to serve here in the wilderness, an honor and a chance to meditate and grow closer to the gods in ways crowded urban life did not allow.

Prestige aside, there were days when Dren was bored out of his mind, but it was hard to argue with the view this high up. The day created a lovely contrast between the jungle and the blue of the sky, and at night the distant mountain ridge across the valley glowed with the light of the city and spaceport spreading on the other side of it.

The foothills also carried sound particularly well, and he looked up from his sweeping at a familiar whine drifting on the wind. _A speeder bike._

Dren smiled and set the broom aside, hurrying back up to the temple proper and the old statues that sat inside it. “I think we will have guests soon, Honored Ones. Another couple coming to seek your blessings.”

By the time the speeder bike reached the old landing pad that sat at the bottom of the temple steps, he had gathered flowers for the altar and donned the plain blue shawl of his rank, finally lighting incense before the worn faces of the gods. He left to greet his visitors with a final look over everything, curious to see them. _I wonder what they will be this time. Young lovers held apart by their families? A noble forsaking her house to wed a servant?_

There were reasons couples came all the way out here to be married rather than at the main temple in the city, and the priest did not judge any of those who did. Dren enjoyed the rare breaks in his routine and solitude and the chance to bring two closer in the eyes of the gods, locals and offworlders alike. “Greetings, and welcome,” he called down to the distant landing pad and the two slipping off the bike there.

Its engine cut off and Dren hesitated as silence fell between him and the pair standing far below.

They were two men in dark colors, traveling clothes of an offworld style, and the lower half of their faces were covered. Both moved with a dangerous grace that made him think of soldiers. But the relaxed way the first man lifted his hand in greeting as the two began their climb up the steps reassured Dren they were here to be wed, not to cause him or the temple any harm.

Relieved, Dren gave a deep bow as they joined him at the top. “Do you come here seeking the blessing of the gods?”

“Yes, Father,” the taller one said. He tapped the side of the sleek half-mask he wore and pulled it free to reveal a tanned, attractive young man with a scar on one side of his face.

Without looking down, the man collapsed the back collar of the mask into the front pieces and with a twist of his hand slid everything together into a small, narrow silhouette of interlocking parts. The mask itself had looked simple and almost plain, but the way the pieces moved in silent elegance suggested something far more expensive.

The young man tucked the mask away into his jacket, smiling brightly. “Sorry about the masks, Father.”

“It’s alright,” Dren answered with a kind nod. _He is so happy_. “I have had more than one visitor arrive in them.”

“Thank you for your understanding, Father,” the other man said. He pulled down the swath of black fabric hiding his face to reveal an equally handsome man who didn’t smile but didn’t need to with the fond way he studied his companion.

 _Such love between them_ , Dren noted before leading them inside. _I wonder why they came here…_

He cut himself off with a firm reminder that it was not his place to guess about any of his visitors. _The gods bring them together, and then to me, and that is enough._ “May I have your names for the ceremony?” 

“Yes, Father,” the young man beamed. “I’m Isten and he’s Veris.”

 

 

* * *

 

Isten followed the priest into a long hallway, trailing his hand along the wall as he went. The cool stone occasionally gave way to open archways that let in the warmth of the jungle, delicate leaves sliding through his fingers before the stone returned.

“It’s beautiful here,” he murmured back to Veris as they walked.

“It is,” Veris agreed with a thoughtful look up at the faded paintings that ran along the ceiling. _The priest didn’t even blink when he saw our faces. We may not even have to mindwipe him_ , he added through their bond as they walked further into the temple.

 _We shouldn’t_ , Isten sighed. _We don’t want bad luck, right? Doing that to a priest in his own temple has to bring some kind of bad luck._

 _You are a terrible mercenary sometimes,_ Veris answered with fond patience, nodding up ahead. _Look._

Isten turned back as they entered the main chamber and stopped in surprise. The glow of sunlight filtered through trees drifted across the floor everywhere an archway stood, a perfect contrast to the gentle shadows of the dome rising far overhead. He had been in much bigger halls, but the peace of this one, the balance between the Force swirling outside through the wild jungle and the quiet solitude of centuries contained within, brought another smile to his face.

A host of giant statues dominated the far wall, a small altar in front of them the only furniture in the room. Their faces and details had long been lost to time, but they stood proud in the soft blue of shadow, smaller statues dotted around them like children nestling close at the sight of strangers.

“These are our Honored Ones,” the priest said, bowing to the statues before continuing across the room to them. “They have seen many come here for blessing and are happy to welcome more.”

Isten nodded, so caught up in studying them he only remembered to bow when Veris did.

“Thank you for your welcome, Honored Ones,” Veris stood up as he reached inside his coat, glancing over at the priest. “May we bring an offering?”

“Yes, thank you.” The priest watched Veris walk to the altar and set a small bag on the sprays of colorful flowers laid atop one end. The pouch clinked and slid with the weight inside before settling into place. “Ah, did you hear of that in the city?”

“Yes, fifty credits for the Honored and one for the Lost One.”

The priest bowed, pleased, and motioned to the two pillows sitting in front of the altar before taking up his place behind it with the statues. “Thank you for your offering. For the ceremony, who will dwell in the left mansion of the gods, and who in the right?”

Isten’s heart began to pound as Veris took his hand and guided him to kneel on a cushion, the rich incense wafting from the other side of the altar heady like whispers in the dark. “He will dwell in the left. I on the right.”

Veris kneeled on the other pillow and motioned to Isten, who reached into his jacket and pulled out a tiny, slender box they had bought in town. It was wrapped in a beautiful, exquisite purple cloth woven with golden waves, and Isten thought back to what the shopkeeper had told him to say. “We have little, but please accept this.”

The priest’s eyes widened as he accepted the box. “The gods see your gift, Veris and Isten, and thank you.” He set it down on the altar and unwrapped the cloth with reverent motions, lying the rich fabric across the center of the plain stone slab before opening the box.

 _They’re perfect_ , Isten thought with relief as the priest took out a small, dark red candle and placed it in a simple holder before putting it on the altar before him. He did the same with the other candle in the box, a true red one that he set in front of Veris.

Isten had spent a while learning the meanings of the candle colors from the market vendor they had bought them from in town while Veris had examined the fine cloths sold alongside them. Light and dark halves as told through each color, the shopkeeper had explained, pointing out a few in the rows and rows of hues.

A pair of blue meant a gentle love, the darker blue the adored and the blue the adoring. Purple helped a couple find balance in arranged marriages, and yellow pairs brought luck for second loves.

Shades of red were for those who could not live without the other.

 _Like us_ , Isten thought to himself with a smile over at Veris, who returned it with a tender one of his own.

The priest lit the candles and turned to the statues that rose before them, beginning a long prayer in a language neither Isten nor Veris spoke. Isten let the sound drift over him, closing his eyes and letting his soul drift with it. _I love you…_ he whispered to Veris across their bond again and again, receiving a silent but no less powerful feeling of love in return.

The small, thin candles had burned down almost halfway when the priest turned back to address them. His voice was calm in the candlelit gloom as he spoke, the flames flickering warm against the shadows behind them. “A single fire can be extinguished,” he intoned, lifting his hand in a blessing over Isten. “Do you understand this?”

“Yes.” Isten leaned forward and cupped the candle in front of him, blowing it out as the shop owner had told him to do. The acrid tang of smoke rose to mingle with the incense, and he sat back and pressed his hands against his knees with nervous excitement.

The priest looked to Veris and gave another blessing sign. “A single soul can be lost. Do you understand this?”

“Yes.” Veris slid his hand behind his own candle and blew it out: Isten’s heart twinged at how perfect he looked, how elegant haloed by the ghost of daylight behind him.  

“But two souls bound by fate will always find each other. Have you found yours?” he asked Isten.

“Yes.” Isten said, hands tightening in his lap.

“And have you found yours?”

“Yes,” Veris replied, back straight and proud, his halo gleaming dark and beautiful in the Force as he stole a glance at Isten.

“The gods have heard your words.” The priest bowed to Isten and Veris and the delicate lines of smoke dancing between them. “For these humble two, Honored Ones, we pray that you will let their fire burn unseen, together, for all of their lives.”

Isten remembered to bow on his own this time, the moment as vivid in his mind as the red of Veris’s candle. The light scent of the flowers, the rough stone draped with purple and gold cloth, the subtle happiness he felt across their bond.

“Go with the blessing of a thousand years,” the priest smiled, taking out something pale and gleaming from the folds of his robes and motioning for Isten to hold out his hand.

Isten took a deep, shaky breath as he did, giddy but puzzled by the thin bracelet the priest slid down around his wrist. “A small thing to remind you of your bond,” the priest explained as he put the other one on Veris’s outstretched hand. “The metal is common and weak. It is a reminder that even though you are bound, nothing of the material world can keep your bond strong. Only the two of you can.”

“Yes, Father,” Isten said, looking down at it with new pride as the priest gave a final blessing wave over them both and motioned them to stand.

“Thank you, Father,” Veris offered as the priest led them back the way had come. He took Isten’s hand as they passed the worn stone arches and the lush views of the jungle, squeezing it, and Isten couldn’t resist stealing a silent kiss in return.

 _My beautiful boy_ , Veris scolded him playfully. _If you really don’t want to invite bad luck here, we should at least wait until we’re on our way back to town._

 _How about one of the clearings we passed through?_ Isten teased as they emerged back into the warm sun at the top of the temple steps and gave solemn bows to the priest, faces giving anyway none of their silent conversation. _For old times’ sake?_

 _Yes, ‘old times’. We are ancient, after all, having lived for several months now_ , Veris said with a grin over at him, and they made their long way back down to their bike: Isten slid aside it first, Veris settling in behind him to a light shift of the bike’s weight.

Isten waved up to the priest as he started the bike up, the roar of the engines loud in the quiet clearing. _Aww, well I guess we could go straight back_ , he sighed with mock disappointment, shifting in his seat to get comfortable and tease Veris at the same time. 

_Don’t tease me, my little fire. Or we may not get back until dark._

They rode off into the trees, Isten’s joy and desire brighter in the Force than the life glowing in the jungle around them.

 

 

* * *

 

Anakin Skywalker had roughly thirty-seven seconds to guess which hangar bay up ahead would be best to attempt a crash landing into before his fighter barreled straight into the side of the _Resolute_. He was sure of how much time he had left to do this because a dry, clinical voice kept chiming the seconds to impact.

“30 seconds to impact.”

The battle was over, the distant airspace over the planet clear, and he was supposed to be sailing back at a leisurely pace with his squadron, not shooting ahead out of control after a lucky hit by one of the last enemy ships.

It had taken one too many precious minutes to wrestle the ship into more or less a straight line of flight, and another to realize that might not be enough to get into a hangar instead of slamming into the _Resolute_ itself.

 _I’m not getting killed by my own command ship!_ “Rex, send fire teams to the two hangars I’m aimed at!”

“Yes, sir!” the clone captain’s voice came back, and then there was only the rattle of the cockpit around him: Anakin didn’t feel angry or abandoned in the slightest. He knew, and Rex knew, Anakin alone would decide how the next moments went.

“25 seconds to impact.”

Anakin let out a curse as the fighter bucked and the pilot harness dug into his chest. The reroute he’d frantically patched in to override the short circuit on the engines had finally given way to the simple physics of heat melting metal. There was no braking, no reverse, no real forward other than a slow rising line upward, only the engines sputtering out of control with blaster cannon scorch marks striping the back of the ship. He was slowing down, but not enough to survive a collision. Or clear the _Resolute_ and shoot past it.

“20 seconds to impact.”

_I’m getting higher but I can’t make either hangar and I’m just too low to clear the damn ship!_

The bare beginnings of an idea hit him and in desperation he ran with it. “Rex! Raise the shields!” he spat into his com.

“Sir?!”

“Do it! Tell me when they’re fully up!”

 _This has to work,_ Anakin told himself with an almost insane mix of fear and excitement. _I barely need a little more height to clear the ship. Just a little._

“15 seconds to impact.”

“Rex, come on!”

A ghostly blue shimmered across the black silhouette of the _Resolute_ that took up the bottom half of his view, so close now Anakin could just see the orderly glint of lines of windows and hangars. “They’re up, sir!”

Anakin snapped up the safety cover on the control stick in front of him and covered the lower button with his finger. The glove and the mechanical hand beneath didn’t let any cold of the metal through, but he felt a rush of it all the same.

The computer took on a new, more concerned tone. “10 seconds to impact.”

“Sir? What are you doing?!”

“I’m bombing you, Rex.” Anakin clenched his teeth and leaned back, driving the ship up into its rising trajectory as much as he could to the stuttering roar of the engines.

“Sir?!”

Anakin closed his eyes and reached out to the Force, letting it sink down into the icy wave of his adrenaline.

The little ship rattled as he fired, and the shot was away, a small cluster bomb designed for short range attacks and now aimed to hit just ahead and below him on the upper curve of the shielding.

“5 seconds to impact.”

The explosion shattered in fire and shock waves across the invisible screen: Anakin yanked the fighter further upward to the strain of the Force and his own frantic piloting. 

The force of the explosion shoved up against the fighter to the sound of metal shrieking, pushing it higher like a dancer lifting a partner. The edge of the _Resolute_ towered before him, a mountain range of grey and sunlit shadow edged in the blue of shielding, and then it was gone as the little fighter cleared it.

Anakin shouted in stunned triumph.

Rex did the same through the comm and Anakin heard applause on the other end of the line as others realized he had made it. “Don’t… don’t do that again, sir.”

“Hey,” he sighed, heart pounding. “Promise not to for at least a day or two.” He hit the emergency kill switch to cut power to the engines and began to patch and stabilize the other systems.

“Damn right.” There was a pause before Rex spoke again, Anakin happy to catch his breath and rattle along in silence as the ship drifted forward trailing smoke. “All enemy targets in the plane of combat over the planet and stragglers out here have been neutralized. Your ship is holding together from the data we’re getting, and your current path is taking you close to the _Negotiator_. Cody and I are working on getting one of their rescue crews out to slow you down and pick you up.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Cody would also like me to informally convey that you’re a pain in the ass, sir.”

Anakin slumped back in the pilot chair with a dazed grin. He didn’t care about the new, rising pain following the lines of the harness where bruises would form later or the aches in his head and body from where he had been knocked around: they meant he had survived the impossible. Again.

“Tell Cody he better watch out or I’ll bomb him next time.” 

“Yes, sir,” Rex laughed and signed off, relief as obvious as Anakin’s.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi had never been the type to depend on communicating through the Force.

It was frowned on by many in the history of the Jedi as a crutch, a lazy habit that led to shutting out those who weren’t Force-sensitive. Given how many sentients and species were not Force-sensitive, the Order had wisely forbidden study of the art thousands of years ago to keep the Jedi part of the galaxy rather than retreating from it.

So much time had passed without any true examination of the skill it had become something instinctively guessed at more than understood. Most Jedi were capable of speaking to their Padawans and Masters only at short distances, and Obi-Wan had been content with this arrangement all his life.

Now he cursed and strained forward in the Force as he strode through the halls of his command ship the _Negotiator_ toward the main medical bays. _Anakin!_

Minutes ago, a faint wave of panic from Anakin had rushed through him while he stood in front of his squad leaders to give the final briefing for the 212th’s ground assault. When he trailed off and looked away, to his credit as a Jedi many of them thought he was just considering what to say next.

None of them knew Obi-Wan’s heart lay still in his chest as the distant fear coming through the Force seethed higher before it finally broke into a bright, incredible joy. He finished his sentence and the next one and the next as confidently as he could until the briefing was done, hands clasped behind his back so tightly his knuckles turned white. But his voice and posture remained calm and assured, what his men needed from him as they saluted and filed out.

Once the last had left, he took a deep breath and jabbed the priority channel on his wrist comm twice and then a different line when he received no answer on the first. “Cody, where is he?”

“Medical Bay Hall 819-L, sir. He’s banged up but no more than usual. I’ll meet you there.”

Now Obi-Wan walked as quickly as he could without alarming anyone he passed, nodding out of habit to those who saluted him. _Anakin!_

The uniforms of the men had changed the further he had gone into the medical decks, shifting in a gradual wave of color from the harsh, clacking lines of white and yellow armor to the whisper of blue and green scrubs. The scent had too, the distinctive tang of disinfectants growing stronger as he went.

Cody stood outside of one of the private suites down the long hall marked 819, a datapad in hand and impassive as usual.

“How long until we drop planetside?” Obi-Wan called out as he approached.

“20 minutes, sir.”

“I’ll be there, I promise, just… I need a moment…”

“I know, sir,” Cody said not without kindness as he held out the datapad. “Final approval of the operation for the records and then I’ll take my post on the bridge.”

 _Anakin?_ Obi-Wan asked as he took the cool bit of glass and metal, unable to wait until he was done to call out again.

 _I’m here, Master!_ came the comforting reply.

Obi-Wan tapped in the long, random snarl of characters that had been assigned to him when he took on the title of General what felt like a hundred years ago, already soothed by the glow of Anakin’s presence on the other side of the door. “Signed off.”

“Very good, sir,” Cody said before lowering his voice. “No one’s in there right now. They finished his exam a few minutes ago and I told them not to send anyone else in until you’re done seeing him.”

Obi-Wan handed the datapad back with a grateful nod and equally quiet reply. “Thank you, Cody. You’re a good friend.” He cleared his throat. “Please let them know I’ll be onboard in 10.”

And then he was in the room with the door closing behind him, crossing without thought to Anakin sitting in a bed and propped up in the stark white lines of medbay sheets and pillows. His beautiful Anakin, alive and whole and smiling at him with a sheepish expression. “Hey, Master, I---”

Obi-Wan ran his hands over Anakin’s bare chest and shoulders as softly as his anxiousness allowed, fingers only ghosting over bacta patches as he reached out in a trembling rush of the Force. “You’re safe, thank the stars, you’re safe…”

Anakin put his hands over Obi-Wan’s with a faint grunt of pain at the movement, welcoming the wave of Obi-Wan’s joy with his own reflected back. “Yeah, right here. In one piece,” he grinned with a squeeze of Obi-Wan’s hands.

Obi-Wan smiled, fighting down the fear that had driven him through the halls, and shook his head. “It would seem so, dear one.”

“For awhile at least. Enjoy my scintillating company now before Snips gets ahold of me.” Obi-Wan could sense Anakin’s own fear still there but fading as Anakin pushed it back with his usual jokes and grins.

Obi-Wan didn’t mind. Jokes meant Anakin was all right, and Obi-Wan was happy to make them back as long as Anakin wanted to. “I suppose so,” he murmured, stroking Anakin’s hair and losing himself in its waves.

“You heading down?”

“Yes, I only have a minute. I just had to see you.”

Anakin reached up and touched Obi-Wan’s face, caressing his cheek. “It’s ok. I’m ok. And hey, I’m glad you came.”

“Hmm?” Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, just calm enough to allow him to invite the joke Anakin was clearly about to make.

“I could give you a kiss for luck. Clearly I’ve got a lot of it today.”

Obi-Wan played along, still not completely at ease but just as eager as Anakin to forget what had almost happened. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

They kissed, softly for all the desperate relief in their souls, and he felt the last traces of panic fade into the perfect, serene halo of the Force they shared in moments like this. Anakin had been hurt, Anakin could have died, but he was here, warm and gentle against Obi-Wan, and that was all Obi-Wan needed.

He wanted to stay there for an hour against Anakin, close and warm and together, but he made himself let go and step back. “I suppose I shall leave you to Ahsoka’s tender mercies, then.”

“Be safe down there.” As he turned to go, Anakin let his fingers trail down along the back of Obi-Wan’s tunic. “I love you,” he whispered.

Obi-Wan paused without looking back, his answer almost shy. “Anakin, I…” And then he was gone, what he couldn’t say lingering bright and true in the Force.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's where our boys are, some months after where we last saw them. What did you think? 
> 
> Now that my epilepsy is more managed I'm hoping to get back on more of a regular posting schedule. No promises but hopefully I'll be able to get back to doing regular updates.


	2. Lessons

Anakin sat on one of the crates stacked up in precise drifts across the _Resolute_ ’s main hangar bay, watching the activity around him with mild interest. The tightly woven chaos around him was fading into the quieter rhythm of the night shift, most of the crew off to their main rest cycle. It was peaceful in a way, and he closed his eyes and let his attention focus as best he could on the Force and the bright sparks of his men that flickered in it.

He thought of his twin, born and lost on a planet now far away in distance if not always in memory. _Isten was so much better at meditation. Even though he was a Sith_ , he sighed with wistful annoyance _._

Weeks after they had left the surreal planet that had given him and Obi-Wan strange, dark reflections of themselves, they had held a small funeral rite for Isten and Veris. At the Jedi temple flowers were placed on the traditional cremation bier when a body could not be recovered, and he and Obi-Wan had burned one each for their strange twins the next time they sat at a campfire out in the battlefield, somber as they watched the petals glow white and curl into embers while their soldiers slept on around them.

That night had been the last time they had spoken of Isten and Veris to each other, with a wordless agreement and guilty relief to never speak of them to others. But Anakin knew Veris still weighed on Obi-Wan’s mind just as Isten did on his, a strange and frightening insight into what they could become if they were not careful and a puzzling reminder of the good that lived in them as well. Isten had sacrificed himself to save them, and in the end Veris had chosen to die by Isten’s side rather than live without him. 

Anakin had wondered more than once if he would ever be able to fully understand how two wreathed in the dark and all of the vices that came with that could be capable of such selflessness. He opened his eyes and sighed, frowning at the memory of Isten seated by a campfire and slipping into meditation as easily as Obi-Wan did.

It took more effort than he liked to push the image away, and he studied the hangar around him, eager to move on to other thoughts. _What can I do while I’m waiting? Snips said she might be late._  

Anakin let his mind wander, and the uneasiness of earlier was forgotten in gradual waves, lost in battle plans and ideas before he finally settled on the progress Ahsoka was making in the defensive saberwork Obi-Wan was teaching her.

 _I need to get some training time in with her before she goes full Soresu style and I never get her back_ , he decided with a small smile before he remembered another friend he needed to get in touch with. He reached into his tunics with a wince from his injuries, pulling out a mini holorecorder and mood continuing to lift in that quick, mercurial way those that knew him were used to. 

Clicking the device on, he grinned at the little blue dot floating over the pad that told him where to look as he made his recording, already more at ease. “Hey, Padmé, so yeah, if you heard about yesterday don’t worry. I’m fine. The whole thing was maybe a 3 out of 10 on the scale Ahsoka likes to use for me.” He paused and raised his eyebrows for dramatic effect.

“So, unfortunately for your chefs, I’m still on the list for that dinner you promised us whenever Command has us come back for rest leave.” A bit of color caught his eye across the bay, the distinctive blue and white crown of a Togruta bright among the dark uniforms of the workers, and the last of his serious mood vanished as he called to her. _Snips!_

He turned his attention back to the recorder. “So, I’ve been working on my request list for that dinner. More like dreaming about it. Maybe some Mandalorian meat skewers, or Akitan dumplings, or those really good sweet buns with the red dot on the top. Don’t know where they’re from but I think we had them last time we had dinner at Organa’s place?”

Ahsoka waved as she walked up and pointed at the recorder. “Hey, is it time for our weekly holo back?”

“Yep.” Anakin twisted the holorecorder toward her. “Say hi to Padmé.”

“Koh to yah, Padmé!” Ahsoka began in her usual cheerful tone before she leaned forward to whisper. “There’s a cold 20-credit chip in it for you if you can get us back to Coruscant sometime before my lekku grow to the floor.”

“Any requests for the dinner she promised us?”

Ahsoka leaned back, pretending to be in deep thought before she spoke. “Hot food. Good food. Food food,” Ahsoka counted off on her fingers. “And we miss you, by the way! I hope your meetings and negotiating and diplomacy-ing are going ok. Let me know if you need me to knock any heads when we get back.”

“I don’t think Jedi offer to knock heads, Snips,” Anakin laughed, turning the holo back toward himself. “Pretend you didn’t hear that, Senator Amidala.”

“Wait! I offer to apply the most loving of rhythmic cranial massages!” Ahsoka replied, coming to sit next to him on the crate and pushing him over with a scoot.

Anakin gave a mock sigh of disapproval before moving on. “Obi-Wan would say hello too, but he’s stuck on the _Negotiator_ for the next day or so running through clean-up plans with the locals. He’s doing good. He--”

Below the camera line, Ahsoka pinched Anakin’s leg and raised an eyebrow at him. _Tell her!_

 _What? No!_ “He’s been getting hurt a lot less lately. Not counting yesterday, I guess I have been too.”

He ignored the poke he got and continued. “The men are saying we’re both a little less crazy lately, which I guess is nice.”

 _You two are less crazy because you two are together!_ Ahsoka chided him, smiling innocently for the recorder. “Yep, I have no idea why. None at--”

“Anyway,” Anakin cut in, “I think if we go much longer it’ll take an extra week to get to you, so yeah, just want to say I hope you’re doing ok. Next time tell me about this guy you’re seeing, in case I need to get Ahsoka to apply a good cranial massage.”

Once they said their goodbyes and he had clicked the recorder off, he sighed and rubbed his head. “Snips…”

“Sorry, Master.” She hopped off the crate, voice sheepish. “I know we’re keeping it to Rex and Cody. I’m just, you know, I’m really happy about you two.” 

“I know,” Anakin said, gently enough she knew she was forgiven. “I am too.” 

He sent the message along and slipped the smooth metal disc back inside his tunics before he stood up. “Come on, time for class.”

They walked through the massive, open gates into the salvage half of the deck, row after row of damaged wrecks set precisely in their own workspaces and in varying states of disassembly, the floor as quiet here at night as the main hangar had been. The ships and machines further back where Anakin and Ahsoka came in were nothing more than carefully numbered crates full of the parts the mechanics had been able to salvage, ready to go back into service. 

When they turned to stroll down the middle aisle, careful to stay within the red safety lines that marked it, more recognizable silhouettes stood among the piles of crates and parts already removed. Anakin lifted his hand in a greeting to the mechanics that saluted him before they returned to their work. 

He pointed at the burned, warped pile of metal one pair was stripping down. “What is it?”

Ahsoka tilted her head, folding her arms. “PA-429, surface speeder, one seater. Uh... third generation. Maybe second? We just got the third gens in last year.”

“What’s the difference?”

“They fixed the balance trouble on the second gen by shifting some of the weight to the front in the design.” She squatted and studied the bottom of the craft without crossing the red line on the duracrete, thoughtful. “Yeah, it’s a third gen.”

“Any difference in repairs?”

“No. But the third gens… hang on.” Ahsoka frowned at the ship, standing back up. “What did you tell me? I can’t remember, but you said something about when they changed it now they have something about the firing system you don’t like.”

“Yeah, they had to move the wiring around and now if the firing system shorts out it usually takes out the main power with it.”

“So I get half a point?”

“I’ll give you a whole one. I’m impressed you remembered me complaining about that.”

Ahsoka nodded with pride and walked along with him, Anakin repeating his rapid fire questions and Ahsoka doing passably well more often than not. They stopped again and again at random wrecks that grew more whole the closer they got to the front of the hangar, staying out of the way of the occasional worker moving along them.

“Ok, which one for our last one?” he asked, looking around at the first row of ships and machines that were mostly intact but had still been brought to salvage for more subtle problems that were beyond repair.

“How about anything but the one in front of us?”

“Let’s fix the one in front of us,” he grinned. “Consider this your punishment for earlier on the holo. To start, what is the one in front of us?”

Ahsoka sighed with resignation. “Gunship, 107-B model. The fussy model.”

“Yep. And what’s wrong with it?”

She raised an eyebrow at the battered exterior and the soot-ringed pockmarks running along it. “How much time do you have?”

“Fair enough. What would you work on first? If you had to try?”

“Hmmm…” Ahsoka motioned over toward the hull. “Engines look ok, actually, and no obvious damage to the wings. But looks like the main board took a major hit through here. So I’d start with that. Can’t fly it if you can’t turn it on.”

“I agree. How can you reroute the main board of a 107?”

“Through emergency sensors, like the fire ones, since they trigger from the back-up power supply.” She paused, looking at him. “I think?”

Anakin nodded. “Not too bad, Snips. I was going to make you try to get power to the board but I don’t think we’re going to have enough time before that meeting I have to go to.”

Ahsoka let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Master. Hey, isn’t that your fighter on the end?”

“Yeah,” Anakin said, the two of them walking toward it past the sprawled hulks of ships and machines. “I was going to look at it later but might as well do it now.”

“We’re not going to try to fix it, are we?”

“No, but I wanted to get something.”

Ahsoka watched, puzzled, as they approached the scorched and damaged ship. Anakin looked around, making sure no one was working on it or on the ones in the bays to either side before he felt safe to step off the path and go over to the wreck.

He picked up one of the toolboxes he passed and leaned in to the cockpit, setting the toolbox down inside first with a rattle.

“You need help, Skyguy?”

“No, I’m all right.”

Curious, Ahsoka wandered over anyway and peeked over the side. Anakin was loosening the screws on one of the small pieces of metal that covered the control board, and Ahsoka wondered why he was working on that one. From what she knew, there wasn’t any significant part underneath, but she waited to see what he would say.

“There we are.” He lifted the tiny metal plate free and tossed the screws into one of the small buckets sitting behind them.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an old habit I picked up from the boys.” He gestured at the ship with the screwdriver in his other hand. “Anything that got destroyed saving your life deserves to have a bit of it saved too, whenever it’s possible.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said, looking with new interest at the piece. “What do you do with it?”

“You keep it somewhere in the next one you fly. I met a tank crew once that kept a jar of bolts from their first tank under the gunner’s seat.”

She looked again at the wreck that had protected her master, closer than she had the first time. It lay silent and fragile as a dried leaf, marred with scoring and gaudy streaks of damage, and her heart tightened as she took in the full truth of what had happened. 

He had been so close to dying, just a few thin bits of metal and luck between him and it. “You almost didn’t make it, Skyguy,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back with a somber nod, sending gentle warmth through their Force bond as he put his hand on her shoulder. “But I did.”

“Promise you always will?”

“Promise.”

 

* * *

 

The back lanes that wound from the city proper into the spread of ships, warehouses, and repair hangars that made up the spaceport were the same Isten had seen in any city, whether through his own experience or the hazy bits of memories of Anakin’s that sometimes came to him out of nowhere. Plain, unending walls of duracrete, not much sunlight making it down and hard-faced locals passing by in silence.

The speeder bike thrummed as they came to a stop at an empty intersection to wait for a caravan of loaders rumbling by in front of them. Veris sat leaned against him, as pleasantly relaxed as Isten was, and he enjoyed the warmth of his master’s chest against his back. Even the narrow blue strip of sky visible overhead between the dull buildings brought a smile, even if it was hidden under his mask. _We’ll be back up there soon. Wonder where to next?_

The last massive bulk of loaders rolled by to reveal a line of men standing in the middle of the road with blasters out and trained on them.

Isten blinked at the sound of another blaster clacking into place just to the side of his head, and he could tell from the way Veris stiffened one was pointed at him as well.

“Off the bike,” snapped the man with a shove of the barrel against Isten’s head. “Now.”

Infuriated he had been caught off guard, Isten lifted his chin and snapped the handlebar back to turn the bike off. It drifted down to standby mode as he Veris dismounted with their hands up in the air, the movement sliding their thin bracelets down into their sleeves. The little street they and the men stood in was empty and the group’s stony faces and shabby clothes told him all he needed to know. _Local thugs waiting for easy targets._

“Gentlemen,” Veris said with a notable lack of concern, his own hands still raised but the surprise of a second ago gone. “If you would like your own speeder bike we’d be happy to guide you to the shop we rented this one from.”

“Shut up,” the apparent leader said from the middle of the pack. “Search them.”

One of the men next to them holstered his blaster while the other moved back to rejoin the group still aiming carefully at them. Isten glared ahead, furious at the rough way the lackey yanked Veris’s scarf down, but Veris’s voice sounded calm and confident in his mind, deadpan humor on full display. _It would seem none of our new friends recognize me. I’m hurt Obi-Wan isn’t more famous out here, but I suppose I shall live with it._

_Master…_

_Just wait, dear one. And remember, no sabers where others can see._

The Force flickered dark around Veris as he spoke to the man tugging at his sleeves and jacket, his master’s voice low and rich with power no one but Isten could feel. “We don’t have any weapons, my friend.”

The man paused, glancing up at Veris, and he whispered again with the slightest tilt of his upraised hand. “No weapons.”

He frowned and finished patting Veris down, moving over to Isten with a low grumble and not bothering with his more complicated interlocking mask. 

Isten did his best not to laugh as the man went right past the pocket with his saber in it without a word.

“No weapons, sir!” he called back, dazed, before hurrying back to rejoin the others.

“Stupid offworlders.”

“No credits on us either, I’m afraid,” Veris shrugged as they lowered their hands and Isten made a mental inventory of the men. Nine, each with one blaster, three with more in sight hanging at their waists, and probably all of them carrying some sort of knife or other nasty surprise in sleeves or pockets. _This is going to be fun_ , he decided.

“We saw that ship you came in on. Nice, looks expensive.”

“Thank you. It’s new,” Veris replied. “And we really should be getting back to it.”

“I think anyone on a ship that nice must have a lot of credits lying around in his account. Don’t you, boys?” the leader asked to some pleased mutters.

Isten tensed, the Force blooming out like ink into water, but held the swirl of it at bay as one of the men pointed. “Over there, that old warehouse. Now.”

“Are you sure about this, gentlemen?” Veris asked, the shadows of his own halo in the Force drifting into black. Isten closed his eyes for a moment and savored the way his master felt across their bond as they were marched inside off the street.

Their captors led them into the unlit gloom of what had once been a massive receiving bay: there were the metal doors they had been led in through, another set across the way that opened out onto an adjoining empty street, and faded scratches and painted marks along the wide expanse of the floor. Tools and boxes lay scattered under a thick layer of dust, everything crumbling and ruined except for a set of speeder bikes parked along that side of the room and trash scattered around them, signs this was a regular haunt of the gang. The only light drifted in from the open doors, weak and pale.

“To the back wall.”

Veris and Isten did as they were told and turned to find the men standing back a comfortable distance, blasters aimed lazily at the ground. 

“You in the mask!” the leader smirked. “Hands up again.” He brought his weapon up to aim at Isten, Veris giving a faint smile at the excitement rolling from Isten across their bond. “You some kind of bodyguard or something?”

Isten nodded, lifting both hands in the air.

“You’re not very good at it.”

Isten shrugged. The Force surged at a tiny flick of his fingers, knifing across the room in shards of the dark.

The man’s wrist cracked.

He howled and dropped the blaster, a single shot flying wild into the gloom as he sank to his knees in a rough stumble. No one spoke, his men too shocked to do anything more than step back from him while he screamed curses and clutched his arm to his chest.

Veris stepped forward with a smooth wave of his hands, and both sets of the heavy outer doors  rumbled shut in a shriek of rust and metal.

Isten laughed at the shadows and blind panic that fell over the bay. 

Some of their would-be robbers now fumbled with their blasters and others fled toward the closed doors they had no hope of getting through, the leader staggering to them as he held his wrist. 

_Well, Master, I guess we’re not out where people can see us anymore, are we?_

_No,_ Veris agreed as the braver ones took aim, their blasters shaking. _I suppose we’re not._

Isten drew his saber in a hiss and spin of red, knocking aside with a brutal grace the first panicked shots the men fired across the bay. 

He strode forward into the wild blaster fire with a silent, lovely ruthlessness that fascinated Veris the way a piece of fine art would. Veris drew his own saber but stayed back, enjoying the sight of Isten dancing through their attackers in a vicious flourish of crimson and seared flesh that brought screams of terror from the men crowded by the doors. His dear one would try to draw out little fights like this to make them last longer, but his impatience won out as it always did and it was barely a minute before Isten slashed through the last shooter.

 _You still have the ones over there, pretty boy_ , Veris said when a flicker of disappointment ghosted to him from Isten. _We must be thorough, mustn’t we?_

Isten turned with new pleasure toward the men cowering by the doors and strolled across the room with an idle spin of his blade and grin lit harsh red. _Yes, Master._

  


* * *

 

When the main warehouse doors lifted up to a screech of metal and the smell of burnt meat, Veris stepped over the bodies lying in shadow and out into the stale light of the street. Face hidden once again, he retrieved their speeder and guided it to rest just outside the open doors, the only sound on the narrow road the distant rumbling of vehicles on the busier thoroughfares around them. 

He folded his arms and leaned against the door frame they had been led through a few minutes before, thoughtful as he studied the same small river of blue overhead that had fascinated Isten earlier.

“It’s time to go,” he said over his shoulder without any real impatience. There was little to no chance of anyone seeing them before they left given the empty street, and even less Isten’s handiwork would be recognized for what it was by whoever eventually found the bodies. In the vastness of the galaxy, few outside of the Jedi and their clones had seen what a lightsaber could do. For everyone else the scene would just be something odd and quickly forgotten about in a place like this.

The men’s speeder bikes would be the focus of anyone’s attention, their bodies likely only examined as proof the bikes were now free. And that was where Isten was at the moment, halfway down the line of them and muttering to himself back inside the warehouse.

“How can the suspension on this one be worse than the last?” he said mostly to himself, already moving on to inspect another one before he raised his voice. “Done in a second! I have to choose a good one.”

Veris motioned to one on the far end as Isten sighed and flicked a good luck charm hanging from one bike’s handlebars. “Why didn’t you start with that one? It appears serviceable.”

“Saving it for the end. I’m pretty sure it’s an Ion-12-2 but I want to make sure there isn’t anything better hiding in line.”

Veris watched the outline of something long and fat skitter by across the darkened space, the creature already drawn by the pungent odor in the air. “Is the bike coming with us or just for a joyride back to the ship?”

“Couldn’t hurt to have our own speeder no one will ask about.”

“True.”

Isten squatted in front of the last, patting its seat as he stood back up. “Ion it is. Decent bike, once I repair it. Didn’t these guys take care of them at all?”

“I don’t think routine vehicle maintenance was one of this gang’s particular strengths,” Veris said with a gesture over to the forms scattered across the duracrete.

Isten hot-wired the bike as Veris looked on with casual interest. It was more fun than searching the bodies for the ignition key, and Veris nodded in approval when the bike hissed to life a few minutes later. “I think that might have been a record.”

Isten beamed at the praise, pushing the bike out into the street before throwing a long leg over it. “Want to race back to the shop?”

Veris raised an eyebrow and mounted the other bike. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day, beautiful boy.”

They wove back into the wider lanes and traffic of the port to return their first bike, the sun now beginning to tilt downward from its point perfectly overhead. When they did, the shop owners commented to each other later how polite the two men had been given how intimidating they looked.

Veris and Isten continued on into the port itself on their newly acquired ride, passing the nicer section where the most expensive ships sat in gleaming rows, the sheen of credits fading section by section until they weren’t the only ones with their faces hidden, and cracks spread out across the duracrete beneath them.

Isten muttered a curse as the bike gave a slight shudder when they turned down the row their ship was parked on, but his mood lifted immediately as soon as he looked down the way. “Hey, you know what?” he grinned, annoyance forgotten as he pointed down the array of sizable, unremarkable ships. 

Their own sat simple but new, a long and sturdy line of durasteel and windows and what would have been laser cannons if the port owners had not been bribed to overlook them.

“Hmm?”

“Those guys were right. It _is_ a nice-looking ship.”

Veris chuckled against the back of Isten’s neck as they approached, weaving around crates and crews and repair droids slowly enough to keep the bike happy. “Ah, it would seem we’ve been missed,” he said, lifting his hand in greeting to the man standing at the top of the gangway as they pulled up in front of the ship.

“My two favorite mercenaries!” the Weequay shouted happily, arms spread wide, before he dropped his voice to a grumble and pointed down at them. “You’re late.”

“Hello, Hondo,” Veris called as they dismounted and Isten carefully pushed the floating bike up the wide metal ramp. “Don’t worry. We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our favorite employer.” 

“What were you doing?”

Isten held up his hand as he led the bike past Hondo. “Getting married,” he said proudly, showing off the plain ring of metal around his wrist.

Hondo rolled his eyes and keyed in the command to bring the ramp up. “Waste of credits,” he sighed as the plank rose with a smooth hiss. “Come on, we have a job to talk about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments and support so far! So what do you think of this chapter and our Jedi and Sith boys? And Ahsoka, can't forget Ahsoka.
> 
> The next update will hopefully be in three weeks or so, health and time depending. Thank y'all as always for reading! <3


	3. Memory

Isten sat on the cool floor of the _Fortune_ ’s secondary hangar bay, cross-legged and frowning, wearing the simple grey of a standard mechanic’s suit. The space had been designed to house a single personal ship, but even with its relatively small size it was hard for him to see what he was focused on against the opposite wall. 

It was a thin control panel sat atop a crate, propped up by a toolkit behind it and long separated from whatever it had once belonged to.

 _Come on…_ he told himself, inhaling the arid, chemical scent of the hangar bay in a deep breath before letting it out. _Let’s try this again._

He closed his eyes and let his mind drift. 

Thoughts rose and fell, boredom came and went as the minutes passed, and when all was still and empty inside his mind, the dark found him. It pooled in slow, rising waves of ink around him, blackness he did his best not to look directly into and whispers he did his best not to listen to. There were times to lose himself to the lovely, awful dark within himself, but this was not one of them.

He stretched out with the Force in the almost-forgotten real world, borrowing a hint of power from the shadows lying heavy in his spirit. _Careful… careful…_

As he opened his eyes, his target shimmered in his mind like gilt over the form it held in the real world, lines of light flitting in and out of focus. There were neat rows of wiring and dots of solder, plating sitting dumb and heavy over them, and the flow of the Force Isten stretched out settled neatly into the lines of the board. 

Isten could almost feel where electricity would go through the unit, the rivers it would flow down naturally if the little board were hooked up to power.

_Almost there…_

He concentrated on the nexus of wires and circuits he needed, nudging the Force forward along the board to center on one particular wire near the middle. A little swell of power was all he would need to pry it away from the others and disconnect it. 

Isten grinned, hands tightening on his knees as he began the fine work of mixing the Force and his precise intent. The wire began to shift, the faintest movement in the real world but loud in his mind across the room. _Yes! Finally I--_

The board snapped in half.

“Dammit!” 

 _Isten,_ Veris called from elsewhere in the ship, as always polite enough to wait until Isten had risen out of a meditative state he had sensed him in, but their link was unable to hide a gentle amusement from his Master at the petty anger he could sense swelling at whatever object had drawn Isten’s ire. _Meet me in Hondo’s half of the ship, the little map room. We’re planning our next ‘expedition’._

 _Yes, Master,_ Isten sighed, getting to his feet and walking over to the crate and the broken control board. 

He picked up one half and jabbed at it with one finger. “See? That part, brain. That little wire right there. That’s all I asked you to do.” He tossed the pieces into a bin he had placed next to the crate weeks ago, where they landed with a hollow clatter atop other damaged boards. Fishing a mechanic’s pencil out of one of the pockets on his suit, Isten leaned over the bin to the wall behind it and added a tick to a row of others marching across the smooth metal plating. 

 _17 tries now. Really?_ He shoved the pencil back inside his pocket and left with one last glare at the bin.

 

* * *

 

The map room was, like their employer, a strange and unusual mix: shelves of modern holoprojectors the size of one’s hand, actual paper and fabric maps of lands Veris didn’t recognize, and just about every technological step between. He was curious about all of it, but they never visited the room unless Hondo was there, and for now he and Isten were examining the plan Hondo had come up with for their next mission.

“So,” Hondo continued, pointing up at one of the star systems hanging in soft blue orbs over a table-top projector. “After they synthesize the spice in the labs on Olraien Four, they load it onto a transport frigate.” He waved his hand and an ugly hunk of metal appeared where the stars had been, its bulk no less obvious for the light blue it was rendered in.

“An F-Class 92 armored transport vessel, maybe 93?” Veris said, reaching out to rotate the ship with an elegant gesture. “You have a great deal of faith in us all, my friend.”

“Yeah, there’s no way the _Fortune_ could take on that thing.” Isten nodded to the spikes of cannons atop and on the underside of the projection before he leaned against the table. “So what’s the plan? Drop us onboard somehow?”

“No, no. But trust me, if I could find a way to shoot you straight inside I would,” Hondo mused. “Anyway! I have it on good word that the frigate always lands on a little moon around Olraien Six, a small station there. Maybe to pick up more goods, I don't know, but it always does that before it returns to space and makes the jump out wherever it’s going.”

“So you want us to attack while it’s on the ground there?”

“Can’t use the cannons when it’s landed,” Hondo said, tapping away from the ship back to a set of planets and the tiny dots of moons wandering around them. “Should only be twenty or so men on board, I’ve heard. Ten more running the station from the tiny size of it. That’s what, a half hour of work for you two, even without your sabers?”

“Are you still insisting we leave most of them alive?” Veris glanced over at Hondo, thoughtful as he considered the numbers they’d be facing.

“Just the ones who don’t attack you, yes. Think of it as a challenge, my friends! A challenge to not draw too much attention to ourselves.” Hondo motioned around with a raised eyebrow and dramatic shrug. “I like our new ship. It’s much nicer than a prison cell.”

Isten tilted his head, the crooked line of a grin forming as he imagined the mission. “So the plan is to attack an armored gangster-owned spice frigate at a possibly gangster-owned outpost station in definitely gangster-owned space?”

“Gangsters do tend to have the most spice,” Hondo nodded. “And these are small-time gangsters. Local. Just this one system. I think.”

“Hmmm,” Veris said, folding his arms and standing up taller as Isten leaned further forward to set the projection spinning with a flick of his finger. “I expect this will be a sizeable payout for the pair of us, as usual?”

“Of course, of course. It always--” Hondo paused and studied Veris, curious. “Wait, did you spend all of the last one already?”

“Perhaps.” Veris gave Isten a fond look while Hondo shook his head and tapped away at the map to bring up more information.  “But, as you have told us one of your mother’s sayings go, ‘Don’t worry about other people’s credits unless you are taking them.’”

“Mama would be so proud of you,” Hondo beamed as another set of faint blue lines rose up between them to replace the transport ship. “All right, here is how the refueling station should be laid out, based on another one like it two planets away. You two will be at the front of the surprise attack with my men, like always.”

“Blasters only, it looks like. Pity we won’t be able to use our sabers,” Veris said with a disappointed expression.

“True. They do make these things go much faster,” Hondo glanced over at them before nonchalantly marking entry points with careful taps of his finger against the floating blueprint. “Well, even without using them... you are going to wear your masks, right?”

“We always do,” Isten said as he rested his head on his hand and gave lazy pokes of green light for the best places to hide their men before the attack.

“Ok, I just, you know, I don’t know what is going on with you two, and I really don’t care. But have you ever thought about looking like… I don’t know, someone else?”

Isten laughed, leaning against Veris as he added his own marks to the layout. “What, you don’t like these two faces?”

“No, well, maybe. They’re not bad as far as Jedi go. I met them once, you know!”

“Did you?” Veris asked.

“Yes. But, uh, don’t you Changelings get stuck if you stay in one shape too long? I am only thinking of your health, of course!”

Veris gave the map in front of him an unreadable smile, and Isten snickered next to him. “Really? I’ve never heard that. But don’t worry, dear Hondo. We shall follow the protocol we have agreed upon so that you are the center of attention, as you always should be. Shall we finalize our plans?”

 

* * *

 

Anakin sighed as he sat down in a blood draw chair, a stiff and sterile and bone-white thing in a room that was just the same. He was in one of the private rooms off the _Resolute_ ’s main medbay, and it wasn’t any more pleasant than all the other times he had come there no matter the reason why. Ready to get this particular visit over with, he swung the chair’s padded arm into place over his lap. “Do I have to keep coming back?”

His battle medic Kix sat on the other side of the chair in the usual blue scrubs he wore on-ship. He leaned back in a long ugly squeak of his chair and pulled sterile gloves from a box on the wall next to them before he leaned back in and clicked on the swivel lamp overhead. “Yep, you have to come back. I keep hoping you’ll get better looking but I think the ugly is permanent.”

Anakin laughed, anxiety forgotten, and shot two fingers up at him. “Eh chuta, Kix.”

“Kaa’tli aut, sir,” Kix smiled back, tugging the gloves on.

“Wait, isn’t that Togruti?” Anakin undid the buckles on his glove and handed it to Kix, who sat it down on a table next to them alongside a small medical kit.

“Best I can copy it, yeah. Not sure exactly what it means but I’ve heard Commander Tano say it in the field when things are exploding. Arm relaxed, hand palm up.”

Anakin did as he was told, folding his sleeve up to his shoulder as he laid his metal arm out on the synth-padded chair arm. Technically he was under the care of the ship doctors when he returned from the field but Kix didn’t like him far out of his sight and Anakin preferred it that way whenever he had a choice.

“Let’s see…” Kix moved his gloved hands up the cool planes of Anakin’s arm until they came to rest in a careful grip over the line where flesh met metal. “No impact bruising at the seam. Good.”

“Yeah, nothing much to punch when you’re fly-- ow!”

Kix pressed the offending spot again with his thumb and continued to feel around the black and gold ring circling Anakin’s arm, cradling it gently for the firm pressure he applied here and there. “Sore as usual?”

Anakin nodded, giving a frown when Kix found another tender spot. “Dammit.”

“We’ll keep an eye on it for a few more days to be sure, but the junction still looks intact, no signs of infection.” Kix sat back, stripping his gloves off and tossing them into a box under the table before he pointed at the lower half of Anakin’s arm. “Want help with that today?”

“Sure.” Flexing his hand, he watched the black and gold catch the light as Kix pulled the swivel lamp down closer. “The balancing weights along the palm got knocked a little out of alignment from slamming around inside my ship, and it’s driving me crazy. It’s always easier to fix with two people.”

Kix agreed and swung the chair arm back out of the way and down to the side, pulling a small table top out from the wall between them. He reached over to his kit with another squeal of his own chair and took out another that he set down next to Anakin’s arm. “Is this the one where we go in through that secondary strut on the left?”

“Yeah,” Anakin said, tapping the piece to show him and annoyed that, as always, the touch only registered as a faint echo through the link running from the metal to his body. “Plating, cover, synth weave, harness, balancing cage, everything in reverse going back out again.”

“So sort of like doing a tension repair for the wrist?” Kix opened the little kit and slid it around to face Anakin. Inside lay a set that looked out of place in the clinical whites and blues of a medical bay: tiny spools of wires, screwdrivers, and a mini soldering pen neatly arranged with other tools.

“Yeah, more or less.”

They fell into a quiet rhythm under the circle of cold light from the lamp over them, Kix passing Anakin what he needed and the two of them carefully removing and replacing fine pieces and bolts with calm familiarity with the task and each other.

“Since you’ve been teaching me for awhile now, do you want me to show anyone else how to do this?” Kix asked once the most delicate work had been done and the need for fine concentration had passed. They had only had the larger, simpler pieces to put back in place, but when Anakin didn’t answer Kix tried again. “You know, it might be handy in case a gundark eats me or something.”

Anakin shook his head, not looking up as he tightened a black screw down into the matching shade along his forearm. “No.”

“Sir…” Kix paused, holding Anakin’s arm still for him as Anakin moved to the next piece and the metal cold against his fingers. “I, well, if I had to I would say that you probably feel about the same as a lot of the boys feel when they have something like this happen.”

Anakin gave a scowl down at his arm and twisted the screwdriver into the plating. “No one else sees it. I’m not going to have anyone staring at it.”

“A man’s wounds are his own, I agree,” Kix continued quietly, “but I just want someone else to be there if I can’t to help you out with this, someone you trust who’s around you a lot. What about Commander Tano? Or General Kenobi?”

“No. I know you mean well but no.”

“Understood, sir.” He watched Anakin lift his hand and flex it in the first of several testing motions, turning it and bringing his fingers in a slow wave toward his palm and then back out again, the tension draining between them into the calm silence of routine. “Looks like you’re set. How’s it feel?”

“Good. And Kix?”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to get eaten by a gundark.”

Kix pretended to consider this as the two of them began packing the little kit back up. “You too, sir.”

 

* * *

 

After a day of planning, training in the hangar bay, and then relaxing in their rooms with a simple meal of the type that life aboard a starship often entailed, Veris sent the trays back out with one of the serving droids Isten had repaired.

He returned to the wide line of the living room and the equally expansive window that ran across the front of it. It had been his only request when purchasing a ship had become possible, and the window and real wood floor that ran beneath it was his favorite place to sit and meditate as planets and nebulae and stars drifted by in their travels.

Isten sat cross-legged on one of the cushions now, the lights dimmed to let in the silver swirl of a moon and its icy planet small against the black of space. His aura in the Force was warm and distant, heat lightning flickering along the edge of Veris’s mind, and Veris kneeled to pull a pillow closer and sit down next to him.

“Thinking of Anakin, dear one?”

“Yeah. I think I want to try again.” Isten glanced over at him and then back out at the stars and planet with a nod. “I’m ready.”

Veris frowned and reached over to smooth a lock of hair back from Isten’s face, but Isten kept looking out of the window in stubborn silence. “Isten, the last time you couldn’t sleep for days afterward. I want to know as much as you do, but you need to give yourself time.”

“We don’t have any other way of finding out more.”

The planet hung in silence as they sat together, Veris’s disapproval a cool weight against the warm halo of Isten’s stubbornness. _Beautiful boy, you know you can’t get through that vision alone. We need to practice more and we both agree whatever this is that happens will not happen any time soon._

_I know, but I don’t want to wait. I want to keep trying._

Veris sighed, considering Isten and his profile silver against the darkened room around them before he wordlessly rested his hand atop his own knee and turned it to face palm up.

 _Thank you, Master._ Isten laid his hand atop Veris’s, palm warm against his. _Come with me?_

_Always._

 

* * *

 

The memory and the vision that lay snarled within it was never difficult to reach: after their minds found their way to each other they began to drift down into what felt like a midnight ocean.

Their time as mindless shadows, twined together as one spirit and unaware of anything but the will of those they had been made from, lay at the top of this fathomless place like starlit waves seen from below the surface. It was beautiful and terrible all at once, and there were times Isten wanted to reach up and see what lay above, but they always fell in slow motion away, down into the dark that marked the center of them both.

An hour or a day later, all sense of time distorted the closer they drew to perfect concentration, the ocean faded and Isten floated down until his boots touched hard stone instead of a sea floor. 

He was in the ruined mansion on the planet Yena Five once again, standing in its depths as it howled and shook all around him. Fear shot through him, sharp and ugly, and then Veris’s hand slid into his to squeeze it before he let go. They were together here in this vision as they had not been in the memory, and that was enough to push back the worst of his terror at being in this place, this time, once again, now knowing what he would come upon up ahead. 

Isten trod over broken glass and past waterfalls of plaster and stone that spilled out from walls and rooms around them. He didn’t bother to unsheath his lightsaber, because what he was about to face didn’t exist.

Not yet.

 _And it won’t. Ever._ Welcoming the rising halo of his anger, he watched the vague shapes shivering in the blackness all around him as he continued. Whether they were a harsh recall of the grand home collapsing all around him, or more sinister shapes of their half-brother creatures of the dark, Isten was never sure.

But Veris was there walking next to him through the shaking ruins, not outside and panicked as he had been in the real world at this moment. 

Here his master was beside him, cold and clear as a winter lake in the Force.

Veris strode with one hand out, pale fingers clenched in a half-turn and power radiating from him. He was holding back the memory-vision of their mother, as Veris called her, the inhuman, distorted presence that had by its nature taken the essence of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s fears and desires and given them shape. Veris was always better able to look the creature in the face than Isten, his own darkness closer to her fathomless black than the sullen embers of Isten’s. 

But it took all of Veris’s strength and focus, and while they walked together Isten alone saw the rising shape that their creator had shared in a last, desperate attempt to stop Isten’s sacrifice to defeat her.

The form coalesced into a figure that took one heavy step toward him and then another, its black helmet and armor obscenely sleek and perfect in the way it hid what Isten knew to be ruined flesh howling in agony beneath it. There was the dull ache of limbs jarred against metal and lungs burned beyond repair, and Isten’s fists curled at the pain that bled out into the Force from the grotesque parody of what had once been a man.

This was Anakin. This would be Anakin. 

Their mother had promised him that, one of the only things she had said on that horrible night that he knew in his bones to be true.

The shadow walked on cold, lifeless legs toward him, time slowing in this strange dream world: Isten took a step back and fought to remain conscious through the rage and agony swirling around the apparition. _I have to see how this happens! I have to!_

Fighting the tears of fury and horror that welled up, he forced himself to look beyond the thing in the durasteel coffin to what sat around its neck. A hazy image of a chain, as heavy and awful as the chaos and screaming of the dark pressing down on him. 

Isten tried to push past his revulsion to follow the chain back into the blackness it came from. _Just a little more this time,_ he hissed to himself or Veris or the monster, he wasn’t sure. _Please!_  

Something brushed against his mind, gone before he could identify it, a vague feeling lost in the ugly storm of the Force and his own terror at the thing that had been Anakin now looming over him. 

Isten stared up into the helmet’s empty black eyes, all rational thought dissolving into blind panic.

 _Isten!_ Veris called. _Isten!_

He shuddered and stumbled back, unable to speak. Something grabbed him from behind, and he twisted around to beat at whatever had him with what little strength he had left.

_Isten, Isten, it’s me! Please!_

He gasped, and the vision washed away into a sudden surge of warmth and the cool scent of recirculated air. 

He had collapsed against Veris, dimly aware he was panting and in tears.

“Shh, I’m here, I’m here,” Veris whispered, pulling Isten closer into the warmth of his chest and rocking the two of them gently back and forth. “You’re safe. I promise.”

“He’s in so much pain, and so angry,” Isten cried, burying his face against Veris’s throat in a desperate attempt to root himself back in the real world. “I still can’t get past any of it.”

“We’ll help him, I promise. Now breathe with me, all right, dear one? Please?” 

They sat for a long while in the gloom with the stars and moon glittering overhead, two dim shapes twined together and Veris murmuring soft words until Isten fell asleep against him in an exhausted sprawl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, and apologies for this chapter being so late. Lots of changes going on lately, and some of them good! (Like a new, much less stressful job, woo hoo!)
> 
> So what did you think? And yeah, those of y'all that wondered when the Angst(tm) would be coming back, you know this is me writing, right? ;) Isten and Veris just want to help Anakin!
> 
> Thanks as always for your support and thank you for reading! <3


	4. Fears

“Please, please,” Anakin begged against Obi-Wan’s throat, words tinged with the salt of his lover’s sweat as he moaned into the dark of the room.

He was on his back, the bruises across his chest seething like embers every time Obi-Wan ground against him. Whimpering, he rolled on a strange, lovely tide of pleasure and pain set to the rhythm of Obi-Wan’s hips, unable to manage anything more than aimless clutches at his back and whimpers of need.

They were in the tight confines of Anakin’s quarters, tangled together on his bunk. The bed was narrow enough Obi-Wan had to press his hand against the wall it sat against and clutch at the edge on the other side to keep himself steady as he drove Anakin into the mattress. 

Obi-Wan hadn’t said anything since he had come in, and hadn’t had a chance to. There had only been the desperate, almost violent race to this point, clothing untied with clumsy hands between hard kisses and Anakin’s hurried, empty promises his injuries didn’t hurt that much.

 _I need you I need you,_ they whispered to each other across their bond, Anakin’s hands clenched against Obi-Wan’s slick back. His fingers dug into the faded purple of Obi-Wan’s own bruises from a few battles prior, the feeling of the hot skin of one and the cool leather of the other arousing Obi-Wan even more because the unusual sensation meant it was Anakin beneath him. 

 _Anakin, my pretty boy, oh you feel so good,_ he told him with greedy kisses along his throat and the slow, lucious grind of his hips as he drove inside him again and again. _So tight, oh yes, stars yes..._

_Please don’t stop, Master!_

This was their second time of the evening, both of them hot and bright with sweat in the faint light spilling from the private refresher in the back of the room. Beneath the harsh thrusts and whimpered cries of pleasure from them both was a thought lurking just below the surface, driven away for as long as they could lose themselves in this sweet, heady rhythm traced with the pain of their injuries.

_Two months._

Anakin braced himself against the wall, free hand fumbling with his cock, and shoved himself against Obi-Wan with a breathless whine. That awful thought was so far away, and he was so close to that perfect, fleeting emptiness where the world hung still and beautiful in his mind and his body shuddered in release.

He stroked himself again and again as Obi-Wan grunted above him, fingers tight around himself and hot palm sliding over the slick white of their first time that evening. A shot of pleasure jolted through him at it all: the feel of himself swollen and thick, his master’s cock stretching him almost painfully wide, the fierce lust in Obi-Wan’s eyes as he watched Anakin shiver with every slap of his hips against him.

Everything fell away into unbearably luscious tension and then the stutter of his body jerking upward into his hand, against Obi-Wan, every muscle caught in delicious shocks of orgasm. There was only Obi-Wan rough and wanton inside him, falling into his own release with choked gasps and arched back.

 

* * *

The thought returned to them both while they showered in the refresher, the space as narrow as the bedroom outside. 

_Two months._

The only sound was the hiss of hot water for most of the shower. They ran gentle lines of soap lather over each other, every tender motion and gentle nudge for the other to lift his arm or turn around a brave attempt to ignore what had driven them almost violently to each other in the dark of Anakin’s room.

“Two months,” Anakin finally murmured over his shoulder as Obi-Wan rubbed careful circles along his back and the scattered marks both war and his lover had left there.

“It’s not that long,” Obi-Wan tried, but the words came out as weak and useless as he found them. 

“Two months away from each other. And the mission they’re sending the 501st on is useless bantha-scat.”

“The Fahdeni system is a valuable one for food supplies on the Haadane-Kli front,” Obi-Wan sighed, cupping water to rinse Anakin’s back off before he leaned against him and slid his arms around to rest against his chest. “Even if it’s just a rumor the Separatists are planning an attack there, Command can’t take that risk.”

A flare of anger met his words, a twinge of fury for their leaders that startled Obi-Wan. “I don’t know why the Chancellor would do this! Or the Council agree to it! It’s pointless and the 501st should be out in the Daenva Cluster fighting with you and the 212!”

“Anakin, Anakin.” Obi-Wan turned him around with a faint dance of his fingers along Anakin’s skin, resting his hands on his shoulders and pretending not to notice the shift of them as Anakin slid the wet-glitter gold and black of his arm behind him as much as he could. 

“I’m not happy about this either,” he continued, alarmed by the fury rattling aimlessly from Anakin’s side of their bond and the scowl that came along with it. “This is the longest time we’ll be away from each other since we’ve been together.”

“And you’ll be out on the actual frontlines like we usually are. What if something happens to you?” Anakin shot back in frustration. “What if you get hurt while I’m playing guard for a bunch of farmers?”

“At least one of us will be safe this way.”

“Then you should go to the Fahdeni system. You’re the one that needs to be safe.”

Obi-Wan wanted to make a joke to break Anakin’s sudden fit of anger, but he couldn’t bring himself to with the sadness that stole over him. _I will be safe. And I will miss you so, dear one,_ he said instead, lifting his hand to slide into the wet, dark waves of Anakin’s hair. _I will miss you more than anything._

Anakin fixed him with an intent look, burst of anger gone as quickly as it had come and a new anxiety in his eyes. _Promise you’ll be safe?_

_Promise._

_Promise you’ll miss us?_

Obi-Wan gave a sad, loving smile and ran his thumb along Anakin’s jaw, wiping away a bit of soap. _Promise._

 

* * *

Hondo had been right about the little mountain base, and about the spice frigate grounded there, and that the _Fortune_ would be able to send down a craft small enough to sneak in for a surprise attack through the cliffs. 

What he hadn’t been right about was how heavily armed their opponents would be.

Isten loved it.

He laughed as another round of rapid fire peppered the crate he was behind, his back pressed against it and the thrum of the vibrations rattling through him. Excited, he slapped a new blaster pack into his pistol as Veris crouched next to him, masked like him and hand up in a hold signal to the pirates dotted out of sight.

To the crew’s credit, they all remained where they were behind cover: it had been Veris’s idea to teach them formal battle signs and combat tactics. They would never be Republic soldiers, but after several months they were learning, much to their own and Hondo’s delight, how to conduct small strikes with enough precision they could take on a whole new level of targets.

The base was small, mostly the duracrete spread of a large landing pad and a few buildings piled atop each other to conserve heat in the cool, open air of the cliff it sat atop. The pirates huddled in a loose line behind scattered crates and containers on the far side of the pad from the building, their own ship behind them and the base and its defenders ahead. 

Empty and silent, the frigate floated against the cliff off to the side between both groups, its loading bay doors open and crates scattered about from the initial attack. Hondo had been right about something else he had mentioned while they up in orbit on the _Fortune_ , watching the bright dot of the frigate spiral down to land: Men who felt safe got lazy. There had been no lookouts when the pirates’ small craft had come speeding in with a hail of blaster fire, most of it focused on the row of control boards lining the side of the landing pad and the comm dish rising up above it.

Now the frigate lay locked by its open bay doors against the side of the landing pad, the massive clamps of the docking port lying dead in place around them. The comm tower lay drunken and smoking over on its side, one of the little stacked buildings crushed beneath it.

All of the gangsters with weapons were crowded behind containers or loaders and haulers rendered equally dormant when the main boards had been blown. A handful of others had scattered into the building and another into the frigate, their fear making Isten grin. _One good point about leaving the unarmed ones alive. They’ll tell a karking great story about the attack._

He turned to Veris, breathing heavily from his sprint up to their current position, and the cold air burned in his lungs.

 _This round I draw fire and you back me up. I’ll bet I can get more than you, Master_ , he teased, a wild look in his eyes and smirk hidden by the black lines of his mask.

 _Do you?_ Veris answered with his own unseen grin, reholstering his own pistol and swinging a blaster rifle around from where it hung on his back. _I suppose we shall see._

_In three, two… one!_

Isten leapt from behind the crate to aim at a faint shadow in the Force that marked a sentient, no hesitation as he took a shot. The dark threw his attention to another target and hit before he rolled behind the bulk of a cargo speeder resting a little further out in front of them. _Ha! Two!_

At the same time Veris slung his rifle up over the edge of the crate in a clack of metal and leaned down to look through the scope. Three of the men in the maze of containers up ahead had leaned out when Isten threw himself out into the open, unable to resist the chance to hit him.

Veris swung the rifle in a clean, ruthless arc as he shot each one in the chest. 

He ducked back down to a hail of random fire and panicked yells from across the landing pad. _Three, pretty boy!_

_Dammit!_

“Forward!” Veris shouted, and the two of them and the crew barreled across the duracrete sweep of the landing pad in a wave of blaster fire and excited shouts.

Isten darted ahead and in a burst of the Force jumped atop the roof of a cargo loader, making short work of the two guards crouched on the other side of it. He pointed off to the side as he ducked a blaster shot and slid back down the windshield to roll off it onto his feet. “Four to the left! Two on the ri--”

Something moved inside one of the open side windows of the loader and Isten whirled around to shoot as a blast of red lit up the vehicle. 

Pain slammed through Veris that wasn’t his own, and terror that was.

Isten crumbled to the ground in a drunken spin, crying out across their bond as the shooter leaned out of the window and aimed down in one of the longest moments of Veris’s life.

Rage tore through him.

He ripped the blaster away from the shooter with an instinctive slash of his free hand, the dark surging, and strode toward him with another twist of his fingers. Thanks to Isten’s work a second ago there were no enemies left in this little corner of the fight, and nothing to stop him as he slammed the man down into the hard duracrete with a gust of the Force before he put a blaster bolt in his face.

“I’ve got him!” one of the crew called, and he turned to see the Weequay dragging Isten out of sight behind a load of containers.

Isten was safe. He was hurt but he was safe. And no one here would hurt him again. 

It was less a thought than a primal, incoherent certainty. 

Veris was only dimly aware of his next shots and attacks, lost in fury and barely conscious of the long line of men dying in flash after flash of crimson shots and throats crumpling in snaps of bone. Some ran from him, onto the frigate or into the base, but it only enraged him further. Later, with a cold satisfaction, he would recall how little time it had bought them in the end.

He snuffed out the faint light of life everywhere he could find it, resisting by the barest of threads attacking the pirates that had slowed to hang far back behind him.

_Master?_

Veris froze where he stood panting and growling at the last survivor, a young man around Isten’s age whimpering in a corner of the base’s comm center.

A weak, silent plea echoed in his mind. _Master, where are you?_

Full awareness crashed over him in a rush of sensations: his own harsh breathing, the weight of the pistol in his hand, the wedding bracelet cool against his wrist. _Isten!_

Veris shot the man with a snarl and whirled to sprint back outside and across the duracrete.

When he finally sank down next to Isten’s side after what felt like an impossibly long run, Isten leaned against him with a cry of pain and the delirium it brought. 

_I’m here, my love, I’m here!_

_Master… Master, listen, please!_ Isten rolled his eyes up to him, panic clear through the ugly haze of his thoughts. _When I got shot and the dark came into you, Master, I… I  saw something, I saw something Master, I swear, it was a shadow, I saw it over there by the ship and it was someone watching you and they were dark like us. Like us!_

Isten’s fear rolled through Veris with such strength he had to force it down for them both, but not before it left a trace ugly and uneasy within his own heart.

“Shh, later, dear one, shhh…” Veris whispered, touching his forehead against Isten’s in both an attempt to calm Isten and reassure himself that Isten would be alright. “Whatever you saw, it isn’t here now. There is no one here like us. No one who will hurt you. Just us. You’re safe, I promise.”

When Hondo found them a few minutes later, Veris was stroking Isten’s hair and repeating his promise over and over again while Isten lay propped up against him whimpering in soft gasps.

A few of the pirates were knelt down and gingerly pressing small emergency bacta patches over the burn on Isten’s side, where his clothing bore a frayed line of char. The skin beneath it seethed a nasty red, but his reflexes had saved him from far worse.

Hondo took all of this in and sighed as Veris snapped his yellow eyes up to him. “Ah, so this is why everyone is dead.”

He looked around the landing pad and the bodies scattered across it with a shrug of acceptance. “Oh well.” 

“Men!” he called out. “Time to load up the spice!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! Apologies for this being so, so late. Hope you enjoyed, and what do you think?


	5. Longing

When he and his men had first arrived on Isanaul Three, Anakin thought he had paid his usual careful attention to the report brief despite his dislike of the mission itself. There was the usual threat assessment that covered everything from chances of Separatist attack down to local known predator species. And the advised spread of troops, though Anakin had found his own instincts were better than what the cloud-comm projections suggested most of the time.

_But this time I missed something._

_The damn suns_ , he sighed to himself as he wandered through the encampment’s neat rows of tents and the odd shadows cast between them. 

The brief had included a note about the incredible abundance harvested from farms scattered along most of the planet, and it hadn’t occurred to Anakin why they were so productive until they landed and began to set up their camp weeks ago. 

Currently, the sun sat just above the western horizon, fat and red and on its way down into the endless rows of crops while a larger yellow one climbed above the equally vast fields of tall green waves spreading out to the east. The first few times the suns had hung in opposition to each other had been impressive, the sky fading to dusk and then brightening once again, but after the twenty-seventh time it just annoyed him.

_All day, all the time._

Anakin’s comm buzzed on his arm, and he wondered if it was his set reminder for a sleep cycle before it buzzed again and then beeped twice. _A comm on one of the secure audio lines._

“Skywalker here,” he answered as he strode out and away from the tents and the conversations and bustle between them.

“Anakin, my boy!” 

“Chancellor,” he smiled, coming to a stop. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“And you. I thought you might not mind a personal comm rather than a full formal conversation. Though sadly part of this will need to be your mission report as it is the only time I have today.” There was a pause as static crackled along the line before the signal realigned itself. “Before we begin, I would like to hear how you are doing. I hear they have you on the ground instead of in orbit?”

“Yeah.” Anakin looked out over the stalks almost as tall as him, the chirps of local insects a gentle hum out in the rows. “Info suggests if an attack does happen it’ll be raids to knock out local military rather than all-out bombardments. No point ruining the crops and farms they’d like to take over, right? If they do attack at all. Worst engagement scenario is an 8% risk of any kind of attack at all.”

“Ah, yes. It must be terribly dull there, I would think. At least you are safe?”

Anakin frowned. “I’d rather keep a lot of other people safe. Did you have any say in this, if I may ask, sir?”

“Only what I was told to say, I’m afraid. The Isanaul rulers have powerful friends in the Senate and the Council is perhaps interested in keeping one of their best Jedi as far back from the front lines whenever they can.” 

A faint rustle accompanied the words. Anakin could see Chancellor Palpatine’s office in his mind from that sound alone, the wide windows and plush carpeting, the Chancellor’s desk stacked high with datapads and flimsiplast. He felt a sudden desire to be there, as he often did when he was on Coruscant and both his and Chancellor Palpatine’s time allowed. Which was not often of late. 

 _And here he’s taken the time out of all his meetings and duties to comm me personally and I’m acting like a spoiled youngling._ “I’m sorry to have asked, sir. That was rude of me.”

“Nothing to worry about, my boy. I understand your frustration,” came the sympathetic reply. “While we are discussing the Council and their decisions, I’m curious to know if it is true the Council has begun looking for another Master to join them?”

“Yes, not officially for another couple of years or so, but Master Rualos has taken on the colors.” Anakin watched the sun in the west vanish even as the light behind him began to grow stronger as he tried to find a way to explain. “When a Jedi feels the beginning of the pull to the Force at the end of his life, he starts to wear this sort of deep blue. Almost black.”

“Ah, is that so?”

“Yes. Master Rualos has only changed his collars for now, so that means he feels he will be with us a while longer. I hope so. He was one of my first saber instructors when I came to the Temple.”

“Ah. Well, I wish him a long life with all of the blessings of the stars, as we say on Naboo.” Anakin could imagine him turning his chair to regard the durasteel waves of Coruscanti buildings and the Jedi Temple sitting proudly in the distance.

“Why do you ask about the Council seeking a new Master?”

“I am a curious old man. How do they go about choosing who will join them?”

Anakin mulled the question before realizing he had no idea. “You know, I don’t really know. I think they confer and choose someone. It’s never happened while I’ve been there. Probably an older Master.”

“Who knows? Perhaps they will choose a young Knight to bring new blood in.”

“I don’t think there’s ever been a young Knight made Master on the Council.”

“Surely they would accept one if he showed the desired qualities?” The Chancellor’s question was one of interest rather than disapproval.

“Maybe.”

“Hmmm.” The line crackled. “Perhaps your master would be a good choice if the Council wishes to make headway with the Senate. All of the war reports suggest Knight Kenobi is intelligent and a shrewd negotiator, which would serve him well in the Senate. He would fit in nicely with the representatives there.” 

Anakin frowned at his comm, a spark of anger in his voice. “He’s not like them.”

There was a pause, just a split second longer than one would take drawing breath to speak, and Anakin wondered if he had been too short with his friend yet again in this conversation. But then came the smile he could hear through the comm, calm and relaxed. “Ah, yes, well you know him better than most. I wish the Council luck, and hope they choose someone who will bring the Order honor and glory.”

“Thank you, sir. The Order is one with the Force, and the Force is with us,” he answered out of habit, but with Obi-Wan coming up in the conversation an idea did as well.

 _I should tell him about Obi-Wan. About us. He was happy to hear about Padme when we were together. I know he will be about us._ “Chancellor?”

“Yes?”

Anakin opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He couldn’t explain why, but he did. The insects hummed along in the fields, the citrus tang of the crops light in the air and odd shadows all around him.

“Anakin? Are you there?”

“Yes. Sorry about that.” _I’ll do it later_ , he told himself, puzzled at his sudden hesitation but reassured as he decided _. Obi-Wan and I are playing things pretty close to the chest for now. That has to be why I stopped._ “Would you like my report on the mission so far?”

“Of course.”

Anakin began recounting the details with as much dutiful attention he could manage, reminding himself not to let his annoyance with the mission show any more than it already had. Somewhere behind him the remote pop of a bolt of blaster fire sounded through the dusk and dawn, a single tick at a time and almost comforting in the controlled rhythm of it.

Far away on the other side of the sprawling encampment, a helmet went sailing up into the air, the pristine white almost disappearing into the pastels sliding across the sky. The metallic squeal of another blaster bolt sounded, and the helmet exploded into pieces.

“Five!” 

Rex wandered up to the back of the crowd gathered around the impromptu shooting range with a grin. One shinie stood atop the side of a tank to the left down the way, another brand-new helmet in hand. He gave no warning before he threw it as hard as he could up and out toward the end of the bare run of land on this side of the camp, where it met the fate of the one before it in a loud pop.

“Six!” the shinie called out.

Rex couldn’t get a look at the marksman through the men standing around, and nodded as one of the battalion’s ARC troopers came to stand next to him. “Fives.”

“Captain,” he replied with a smile. “Is it true you set that giant kriffin’ crate of helmets out there, sir?”

“All I know is someone at Command sent us a batch of a new prototype and said we needed to field test ’em out in combat when we get the chance to see how they hold up. You seen those karking things up close?”

Fives nodded as another helmet shot up to be destroyed in another scatter of duraplast and the count went up again. “Cheap pieces of junk.”

“Yeah.” Rex paused as more cheers rose up from the crowd in front of them. “And that’s why none of you are going into the field wearing them. We’ll just leave that part out of the result report.”

“Good thing, sir. I think the completely official and scientific observation of all of us here is that the failure rate is holding at 100% percent.” 

“Shame. Who’s running the streak out there?”

Fives glanced toward the group with an impressed tilt of his head. “Appo. Stone-cold as usual. The weird light out here’s got most missing after their second or so hit, but he looks like he’s going to finish up an entire round of ten.”

Echo, one of the men just in front of them, turned back with a respectful nod to Rex. “You should go next, sir, and see if you can do ten too. It’s a kriffin’ showdown when it’s you and Sergeant Appo. I mean, you two are the best shots here!”

Fives cleared his throat and gave Echo a pointed look as another helmet exploded out across the barren strip of land. “Hey, what about me?”

Echo considered him and then turned back to Rex. “Like I said, sir, you and Appo are the best shots here.”

Rex laughed and clapped the dramatically offended Fives on the back before he walked off to go around the crowd. “Don’t feel bad, trooper. Your long-neck mama still loves you.”  

The tenth helmet had met its demise by the time he made it around to the front, and the crowd let loose with cheers and friendly cursing again at the perfect round of shots. Appo stood at the front of them with a grin, holding the practice rifle up like a torch in one hand as he motioned out to the bits of white scattered far down range. “Who’s next, gentlemen?” he called, enjoying the attention. “Anyone else think they can match a perfect round on this beautiful evening, morning, whatever the karkin’ hell it is right now?”

Standing off to the side, Rex raised his hand. “I think I could. Maybe do better.”

The men lost it again with fresh whoops and excited shouts as they realized who had called out, and after a moment of surprise Appo laughed and tossed Rex the rifle as he came up to join him at the front. 

Once the applause had died down and he and Rex had taken turns bowing and waving and accepting shouted mock-declarations of love, Appo moved back and into the noise of the crowd. Before he did, he leaned over to Rex with a hint of smugness in his voice as he clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, brother.”

Rex could almost hear the ‘ _You’ll need it’_ at the end, and winked at Appo before he looked down to check the feel and weight of the rifle. _Wave-brother or not, I’m still going to kick your ass._

He motioned to the shinie on the tank and slung the rifle up to follow the first target across the orange sky.

 

* * *

 

Obi-Wan sat cross-legged on a cot in his tent, dressed for bed in the light tunic and pants he usually wore but so much on his mind the idea of sleep seemed distant at best. The rain drummed outside along the distant beat of explosions as he examined the datapad in his lap and finished a ration bar with absent-minded bites. The other reports that had needed attention were stacked on the folding grey table across from the cot, the only other furniture in the tent besides an equally plain camp stool next to it.

In the evenings Cody would usually be sitting across from him over at the table, the two discussing the day’s events and the next day’s plans, both of them as exhausted as the rest of the 212th in the middle of another grueling campaign. Obi-Wan frowned over at the empty chair and then down at the heavy slate in his lap with an unhappy sigh, its title page marking it as an injury report.

It was not the first injury report he’d ever read, nor the first one about Cody, but this one wasn’t written by their medic Coddle or one of the Negotiator's ship meds. It was the first he’d ever received from the Kaminoan cloners that had created his men, and he hated the bloodless tone almost as much as he hated the decision they had made.

**_< <Physical Condition Report: Clone Commander Designation Group 2224>>_ **

<<Injury summary 2:0199A

Sent 21:92 Daenva Six local standard time by Republic Medical Droid 71-8388422 

Received 15:03 Kamino standard local time by Hospital Facility 374L 

Post-combat physical condition report compiled by RMD indicates CC-2224 sustained a Level Two cranial injury while engaged in combat during the second phase of the current Daenva Offensive Campaign. Cortical functionality has been maintained as expected with the low level of the injury. 

However, given the specific location of the injury, algorithms indicate an 82.175% chance of damage to the Kamiseaa Compliance Implant unit. This is beyond the acceptable risk limit of 15.000% set by Republic Senate Order 195877.

Due to the immediate and extremely high risk of CC-2224 displaying violent, erratic behaviors and causing severe harm to others, emergency surgery is required to replace the unit. Per standard procedure, CC-2224 has been sedated by RMD, retrieved, and is in transfer to Kamino Hospital Facility 314L for the necessary operation. 

CC-2224 will be suitable for service in two to three standard weeks following the operation.>>

 _They make it sound like he would have tried to kill me. Or attack me and our men at least._ _I don’t understand this. He was fine._ Obi-Wan set the datapad aside, closing his eyes and focusing on the last time he had seen Cody just hours ago. 

The rain outside dulled to the remembered sounds of blaster fire and the feel of mud thick under his boots: their men had just taken the eastern hills and the droids had retreated across the river to form a new border between the opposing forces for the moment. Obi-Wan and Cody were standing together under the shelter of a few old, bent trees, just out of the rain, studying a holo-projected map of the area to set clean-up assignments in this latest game of tug and war between the Separatists and them. 

_“I say give Squad Three and Seven the north klick. Whatever clankers are left will be pinned up against that rise.” Cody pointed out a dim slab of blue and little red dots spread out in front, taking off his helmet and tucking it under his arm._

_“Agreed,” Obi-Wan said, hand over his mouth as he considered the map. “Two and Eight are across from each other here. Let’s have them sweep toward each other. That will clear out a third of our new territory.”_

_“Saving anything for us, sir?” Cody grinned over at him._

_“For me, perhaps. Are you injured?” He pointed to the side of Cody’s head and the drying line of blood tracing down it into the black of his collar. “Doesn’t that need to be looked at?”_

_“Yeah, when we’re done. Tried to punch the ground with my head again.”_

_“I’ve told you to stop picking fights with it,” Obi-Wan smiled in return, the gallows humor the two shared an easy rhythm to fall into._

_“I try but the damn thing is everywhere.”_

Opening his eyes, Obi-Wan let the room fade back in around him in a careful accounting of each sensation. The sound of rain, the scent of bacta where his own wounds had been patched up, and the weight of his hands resting in his lap: these all told him he was there in the present and with his mind clear and objective.

_Yes, Cody was definitely no different than normal. Rational, calm, no sign of any strange behavior then or during the patrol with me after._

Obi-Wan shook his head, still puzzled. _I will miss you, friend. At least this will get you some time to rest and decent food._

He did his best to shift his mind into the gentle rhythm of meditation, body still and breathing slowing as he examined one wayward thought after another and the feelings it produced before letting it go as best he could. _My leg hurts. At least I’m not getting carried off for that. I can’t believe my own medic had to come tell me they had taken Cody away. At least Cody will be safe for a little while. This is good. There is so much to do tomorrow before sunrise if we’re to take any more territory back. Enough to make it safe for the locals again. I wish we could all be safe._

_At least Anakin is safe out in the Fahdeni system. I should be happy that he’s so far away and back so far from the fighting. And I am. But I miss him. I miss him so._

_I wonder what he’s doing right now. Is it night there?_

Obi-Wan focused on his memories of Anakin asleep, how deeply he slept when they were together and how Obi-Wan sometimes had to wriggle his way out from under Anakin’s arm to use the refresher late at night. He would come back and Anakin, apparently unconscious and yet somehow aware he had left, would lift his arm in an invitation to slide back in next to him.

His mind drifted again. _There was the time we were put up in those palace chambers during negotiations on Viak Prime._ They had been too busy with duties for much of anything other than sleep, but Obi-Wan sighed at the recollection of lying next to Anakin in one of the suite’s massive, luxurious beds and listening to Anakin’s heart against his late at night. _His body was so warm and lovely against mine. And the bed even had enough space for him to sprawl out as much as he pleases. Which is a lot, let’s admit._

The two of them had passed every night of the mission like that, content and haloed in the scent of the ceremonial perfume the locals anointed them with each evening for luck in the negotiations the next day.

 _My beautiful boy. I always sleep best next to you._ Obi-Wan dwelled on the pleasant memory for as long as he could hold out against the weariness of his body, until thoughts began to drift into images and the images into soft, comforting darkness. He put the datapad over on the table and turned off the light by the cot, settling down into the rough blankets and careful to avoid putting pressure on his own scattered injuries.

The booming explosions far off had tapered off into silence and his comm remained quiet, both signs he might be able to get a few solid hours of sleep for once. The room was cool and empty and black, and he gave one last tired, amused smile at the idea of Anakin trying to sprawl his broad-shouldered self across this particular little cot.

“I miss you, love,” he murmured, already sinking into sleep.

 

* * *

 

By the time Anakin’s day ended, a sun blazing overhead in the sky where his body insisted a moon should have been, he had checked in with Rex and his sergeants for any news about the men or the area, of which there was none, and looked around for ships or droids that needed fixing, of which there were also none. The only thing other than the long lines of tents continued to be the crops waving tall and glossy all around them like a sea and giving off their faint and pleasantly sharp smell whenever a breeze passed.

_There is nothing to do here. Nothing at all._

The 501st’s location had been chosen for its central placement between the planet’s three largest cities that might be attacked on the rare chance any of them were. It made sense from a logistical standpoint but after living on Coruscant for so long Anakin felt strange without any buildings in sight along the horizon, almost like he was in space rather than on the ground. Deserts were barren in his mind but plants he equated with people and there were none to be seen other than his own men. The only visible sign sentients existed was the way the barren fields they were camped on had been packed down before they landed, the ground firm and still marked with tread lines out around the borders where no ships had landed and no one had happened to walk yet.

Ahsoka had left with a squad a few days ago to visit the nearest city on a goodwill trip. The locals had wanted to thank the troops and Anakin had told her it was a great opportunity to practice the diplomatic aspect of missions, which was true. _And I also hate that kind of thing_ , he admitted as he walked the edge of the fields for the third time that evening. _So it all works out well this way._

_But I do miss her._

_And I miss Obi-Wan like hell._

He walked aimlessly through the camp, in and out of conversations with his men, around the bulk of tanks and vehicles, but the thought followed him. _I don’t want to go back to my tent. He won’t be there._

Anakin could imagine the scene more clearly than he wanted to: the silence inside, no tea left sitting on the camp table wherever there was a space between droid parts and maps, no gentle warmth in the Force from Obi-Wan meditating on a cushion on the ground. _Oh yeah,_ he remembered, and managed a smile before his mood darkened again. _Force, how old is that?_ Obi-Wan had one ratty old floor cushion he usually dragged along with him to almost every campaign out in the middle of nowhere, and Anakin teased him for it, but right now he missed the ugly blue thing. If it were in his tent, then that would mean Obi-Wan was somewhere nearby too. Maybe getting food, or doing forms with Ahsoka.

_But it’s not there, and he’s not there._

_I can’t believe we have another month left of this stupid, kark-all excuse of a mission. I miss him. I miss him and it’s not fair I’m stuck out here away from him and the front because some politician decided his people needed an entire battalion to hang around for no reason. Politicians are karking worthless, every last kriffing one of them._

_I just want to see Obi-Wan again. I miss him._

Anakin wandered for a bit longer, the thought repeating again and again in between others like the tick of a chrono, the green of the fields rasping in the breeze around him. Exhaustion caught up with him as he passed by his tent for the fourth or fifth time, and he reluctantly went inside to find things exactly as he had expected. The angry edge of his feelings had dulled to a quieter but no less acute longing, and he changed and got ready for bed with a rush of sadness.

 _I miss you._ Anakin inhaled and exhaled a sigh laced with the citrus tang of the air from the fields outside as he lay down, his tanned skin made bronze by the dull orange glow of daylight filtered through the tent walls. Closing his eyes, Anakin did his best to will himself to sleep one deep breath and miserable wish at a time. _I miss you._

_I wish I could see you. I wish you were next to me._

_I miss you. I need you._

Repeating his bittersweet mantra until it dissolved into unhappiness more than coherent words, he drifted off with his heart painful and tight but body unable to resist sleep any longer. There was silence, and quiet, and once Anakin’s consciousness had slipped fully into the black of slumber, he began to dream. 

Hazy stirrings of sensations came first. 

Warmth. Pressure.

They drifted to Anakin one by one, delicate as whispers.

Light. Softness.

A room swam up around him, nebulous and shadowed as it began to take shape in the gloom. The only detail that stood out was a candle lit atop a low table on one side. In the dim flicker, Anakin slowly recognized the place through the fog of his dream-logic, unaware he was not awake. _I’m in Obi-Wan’s room. Why did I come in here? Do I need to talk to him?_

The space settled more firmly into place with Anakin’s realization of it, like a stone sinking to the bottom of a pond at night. Simple window slats faded into view across the room to reveal an indigo twilight rich and deep outside, and when he looked back toward the candle it had taken a crisper form as well. 

The little flame now cast a pool of gold that spilled over the edge of the table to reveal a cushion neatly set on the floor in front of it. _Obi-Wan likes to sit and meditate there_ , Anakin remembered, studying the candle with a new fondness. It matched the cushion, both a luscious red, and he watched it for some time before more vague sensations grew into full awareness and drew his curiosity.

The pressure he had noticed before was sharpening to focus along his knees and his wrists. He glanced down and saw he was kneeling on another cushion like the first. _Am I meditating with him? Where is he?_

With the same dazed confusion, he at last understood his arms to be behind his back, something heavy shifting along his wrists.

“There, my dear one.”

 _Obi-Wan_. He smiled to himself as warm, strong hands pulled something tighter and the dream fully enveloped him. _Obi-Wan’s here with me. Behind me._

“How does that feel?”

“Good,” he murmured, understanding dawning that the pressure was a smooth rope of some kind, entrancing in the way it pinned his wrists together to force the warm skin of one hand hard against the leather glove of the other.

 _That’s just the first knot_ , Anakin realized as warmth began to trace along the edges of the dream. He gave a happy sigh at the light tugs and jerks working along his arms as Obi-Wan continued to tie them together in a pleased silence. Each loop and knot was tied deftly and unhurriedly in a way that suggested his master was savoring the feel of each one under his fingers and against Anakin’s skin.

It was a complicated pattern forming along Anakin’s arms and back, far more so than any he and Obi-Wan had tried out with shyness and blushing in the real world, but here in the dream it made complete sense to Anakin that Obi-Wan would know how to tie and weave any design he liked.

 _He loves me. This is how he shows me that_. 

_This is how he shows I’m his._

With no embarrassment or shame at these thoughts, yet another difference from reality that stood as unquestioned truth here in his subconscious, Anakin let out a pleased whimper. Obi-Wan’s careful, adoring work along his skin teased as much as it soothed in the way he could guess where the next small knot would be. The anticipation of the rope sliding over his skin and biting in was almost as gorgeous as the actual feeling of it, and he gave a gasp each time Obi-Wan surprised him with a sudden, rough jerk.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Obi-Wan whispered in his ear from behind, sliding a new length of rope around his chest and hands brushing against Anakin’s hard nipples as he pulled the rope taut against his chest and out of sight against his back.

“Yes, I am… Master.”

He could feel Obi-Wan’s pleased smile even if he couldn’t see it and bit off another whimper of delight at the sharp tug Obi-Wan gave the rope before tying it off.

 _How many will he do?_ Anakin wondered, growing more and more aroused as Obi-Wan’s hands continued to drift over his back and arms for the lovely forever often found in dreams, twisting and pulling. Everywhere the rope pressed against Anakin it felt like a line of fireflies, pretty and warm and sharp.

He let his head loll downward, flushed and breaths coming quicker at the sight of his own body bare in the candlelight: lines of rope woven into intricate patterns around his chest and digging into his skin, every inch of him exposed and vulnerable and unbearably sensitive.

“So perfect, my beautiful boy…” The fine weight of another rope slid around his chest and he bit his lip, blushing at the new heat that sparked as Obi-Wan tightened it harder than the rest. “Aren’t you?”

“Thank you, Master... More? Please?” Anakin begged with delirious pleasure, turning his head back to look at Obi-Wan as much as the ropework would allow. “It feels so--”

His smile died the same time Obi-Wan’s did.

Obi-Wan’s eyes were gold, an icy gold no amount of candlelight could soften: recognition tore through the gauze of Anakin’s dream at the soul-deep familiarity of those strange eyes. 

_Veris?!_

Bolting awake in his bed, sheets tangled in his fists, Anakin heard a faint reply in his mind, one equally as shocked as his and proof the dream had formed itself from someone else’s subconscious as well as his own.

 _Anakin?!_  

The last unconscious and golden thread of the dream shared between them snapped, leaving only the rich, heady echo of a dark soul as real as Anakin’s harsh gasps. 

The feeling lingered for another long moment before Anakin’s disbelief and adrenaline overwhelmed it. “Veris,” he whispered to the empty room, stunned. 

“He’s alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought and thanks as always for reading. <3


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